Conscious politics practitioners know that what we focus on grows, so we focus on what we want. Politics, by nature, continually draws our focus to what is, what’s happening here, what’s happening now, whether we want it or not. Being present means tending to what is, of course. Yet we also know that if what is, is by any measure not quite all that we want it to be, we must invest the balance of our focused attention cultivating what we want (a/k/a an intention). How about an America that works for everyone? You too? Great. Part of the practice of cultivating what’s wanted is celebrating and making big deals about anything that shows up that comports and aligns with our desire(s). Another part of the practice of cultivating what we want is momentum — the newly-planted vegetable garden needs ongoing, committed focused attention to thrive and produce and so do our intentions so the remainder of
this piece will focus attention on some things that have shown up and comport with an America that works for everyone in a run-on, momentum-building manner for the conscious politics practitioner at any level to, you guessed it, practice generating momentum (!)
so fasten your seatbelt and let’s start with turnout because an America that works for everyone needs everyone enfranchised and participating and our 2020 general presidential election last month drew more than 160 million citizens to the polls which translates to about 70% of eligible voters which by American standards is pretty high, the highest actually since 1900 and it all just felt different this year, like there was more enfranchisement and more participation and post-election reporting is backing that up with, for example, how youth turnout was significantly higher this year than it was in 2016 and with Voto Latino reporting Latinx participation having more than doubled in 2020 from 2016 driven also by younger Latinx Americans who demonstrated, by the way, that the Latinx vote is not at all monolithic (which helps everything) and, meanwhile, Catalist and the non-profit Asian and Pacific Islander Vote reported that overall turnout for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters broke records by about 240% nationally, 350% for those 18-29 while in Arizona and Wisconsin in particular — but not only there — Native American turnout eclipsed previous years helping to flip those states to Biden-Harris and, sidebar, part of an America that works for everyone is everyone feeling safe and secure in their homes, neighborhoods, and wherever they go, which is why I love the story of the Biden supporter living in northern Wisconsin amongst virtually only Trump supporters whose lawn sign was stolen before being replaced by his Trump-supporting neighbor, whom he had not previously met and who said, “that’s just not right…Although we are Trump supporters, we love our neighbors and want them to be able to exercise their freedom of speech just like everybody else… I decided to take my son and go and replace their sign” while, in other news, voters in the Magnolia State, Mississippi, approved a new flag to replace the Confederate-themed one they used to have and, wow, okay, there’s just so much, back to turnout and the Black electorate in 2020 which, like every single other group mentioned, did not begin its enfranchisement and turnout efforts this year but capitalized on years of hard work such that it seems that, as Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist in South Carolina put it, “this election is going to be defined as a movement election for the American experiment” fueled as it was by Black and Latinx and Native American and AAPI and younger voters in all categories meanwhile, an America that works for everyone means everyone feels as though they are represented which opens a whole new can of feel-good worms because, for example, Democratic and Republican Native Americans won six seats in the next U.S. Congress representing four different states while the re-elected 35th generation congresswoman from New Mexico, Deb Haaland, was just nominated by President-elect Biden to be Secretary of the Interior and there’s more to say about cabinet picks but let’s also note before we leave Native American territory, as it were, that professional football and baseball teams have turned the page on team names and mascots that have long offended indigenous Americans while Mondaire Jones, who said “to grow up poor, Black, and gay is to not see yourself anywhere” and “we need more people in Congress for whom policy is personal” will see himself seated in the next U.S. Congress along with Ritchie Torres, another newly-elected gay, Black/Latino man and, while we’re at it, the LGBTQ community in general made significant strides in state government representation in the 2020 election, too, including the first openly transgender state senator in Delaware, transgender state legislature winners in Kansas and Vermont, and openly gay candidates from both major parties also winning elections as state representatives in Georgia and Tennessee not to mention cabinet pick Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay person nominated to a Senate-confirmed cabinet post — Secretary of Transportation — after already making history as the first openly gay top-tier candidate for president in a major political party and the hits just keep on coming and the momentum keeps on building for an America that works for everyone when looking at representation in many more of President-Elect Joe Biden’s cabinet nominations after, oops, almost forgot, first noting that another record-breaking number of women won seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2020 election, too, and, back to Biden and speaking of women, we know that his entire communications team will be made up of women and that a Black woman has been nominated to be U.N. Ambassador and a woman has been nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury for the first time and a Black man has been nominated to be Secretary of Defense and Americans who have been most adversely affected by decades of environmental injustice will now be represented in the cabinet by women and people of color who know what environmental injustice actually is such as the previously-mentioned Deb Haaland at Interior, Michael Regan, the first Black man to be nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, former Governor Jennifer Granholm to head the Department of Energy, and Ali Zaidi, the incoming Deputy White House Climate Coordinator plus Ceclia Rouse, a Black woman nominated to chair the Council of Economic Advisers all of which — and many others like them too numerous to name — are adding up to a sense that more and more Americans will see themselves represented in all levels of government further buttressing an America that works for everyone and then there’s a whole other realm of feel-good politics like the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor in Utah who, in their recent 2020 election, jointly aired commercials attesting to their mutual respect for one another and the process of their election which speaks volumes about politics being for everyone and though I am well-past the length of a typical Conscious Politics Sunday Newsletter and I could certainly go on and on, I wanted simply to encourage you, conscious politics practitioner, by way of demonstration, to always, on purpose, take note of anything and everything that ever even hints at being “on the way” toward what you want to see more of in our politics and magnify it, pay attention to it, talk about it, share it because the law of attraction really is always on and we attract with our thoughts and we attract with our feelings and when we generate enough momentum of thought and enough momentum of feeling that aligns with what we want to see more of, that’s how it happens and it’s really not hard and, finally, before I go, if Christmas is your jam, I hope it’s a merry one for your and yours.
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NOTE: I figured this week’s Newsletter was hard enough to read without populating it with links so here are some references for some of what was said, FYI:
Turnout, Youth Turnout, Latinx Turnout, AAPI Turnout, Women in the U.S. House, LGBTQ Gains, LGBTQ Gains/Mondaire Jones, Mondaire Jones, Native American Turnout/WI/AZ, Environmental Team, Seawright, Black Turnout, Neighbors, Utah Governor Candidates